1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method and a device to automatically palletize packages, in particular by means of a manipulator, for example an industrial robot.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In particular for the automatic stacking of individual goods or goods bundles (what are generally called packages in the following) on a predetermined loading area (for example a limited storage space), a loading means (for example a pallet) or a transport means (for example a continuous transporter) by means of an industrial robot or automatic palletizing machine (i.e. the palletizing of packages into a package stack), it is necessary to plan the arrangement of the packages in the stack in that a palletizing or loading pattern is generated.
For this purpose, EP 1 211 203 B1 discloses a method in which an initial position of the free space remaining between already present packages is subdivided into polygonal sub-spaces. Delivered virtual packages are then initially successively positioned on the edge of a suitable sub-space in the delivery order or from a buffer and are subsequently shifted further as necessary in order to improve the stability of the stack that is created. The position that is successively created in this way is disadvantageous since the positioning of the individual packages essentially depends on the free space of the initial layer.